16 ms·

Multi-Account Containers

703 points by throw0101c 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mjevans 4y ago
Multiple Profiles - for many years. Work, Personal, etc. I'd love if Firefox as a bare URL handler ASKED, with an out of any profile context dialog, WHICH profile and window to load a URL in.
ryan-duve 4y ago
We use different AWS accounts for different purposes at work. It would be an extreme productivity loss if I had to go back to using something other than Firefox's containers.
- handedness 4y ago
  It's not an identical feature, but I have some workflows which require Chromium and compartmentalization between a multiple accounts, and Brave's profiles aren't a bad alternative.
  - zamadatix 4y ago
    For someone that hasn't used Brave in a while - what's the difference between Brave profiles and profiles in other Chromium browsers?
    - handedness 4y ago
      There may be other Chromium-based browsers which do this, but none that I use: on launch the user is (optionally) prompted with a profile selection tool, with additional options to create a new profile or go into a guest session. I appreciate this because without it I often end up wondering why something isn't behaving properly, and after a moment of confusion then realize I'm in the wrong profile. It's not perfect, and I prefer Firefox's rules-driven containers, but for anything which requires Chrome I've found it sufficient.
      - zamadatix 4y ago
        Ah, that sounds nearly identical to the standard launch-time profile picker from the Chromium base - example from Chrome https://i.imgur.com/7b7YqUY.png https://i.imgur.com/7b7YqUY.png
        handedness 4y ago
        Sure is, thanks. At the time I settled on Brave for that use case I saw no such behavior from any of my other Chromium-based browsers. Either Brave upstreamed it, or I did something wrong on my end (likely).
        vxNsr 4y ago
        Pretty sure the setting has been around for a while, possibly upstreamed from brave but I feel like it was around before then. It’s pretty hidden tho, and most ppl don’t want it and get confused why it even exists so it’s possible there isn’t great documentation on it.
      - chupasaurus 4y ago
        In Firefox this prompt is invoked with "-P" argument.
  - bspammer 4y ago
    Chrome itself has profiles, which I use for exactly the same use case (multiple AWS logins)
    - handedness 4y ago
      You're correct. It does, but the last time I tried it it does not prompt on launch as Brave can, which provides a nice reality check for my addled mind. I dislike certain aspects of Brave for other reasons, but this is why I have an unholy number of browsers installed and end up making use of nearly all of them regularly, unfortunately.
- trusz 4y ago
  The Arc browser [1] could be nice alternative as it handles profiles pretty smooth. [1]: https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/
  - eliaspro 4y ago
    This site basically says nothing except "sign up".
    - vidyesh 4y ago
      I have heard so much about this browser from dev & tech podcasts and websites[1]. Those who use it really love it, I wish their website had a video demo at least. This landing page has some screenshots at least https://students.arc.net/ https://students.arc.net/ [1]https://www.theverge.com/23462235/arc-web-browser-review https://www.theverge.com/23462235/arc-web-browser-review
  - toastercat 4y ago
    This smells like pure marketing, incl the company's website. I'd rather use an open-source browser like Firefox.
- albert_e 4y ago
  Other than separate windows... is it very different if we use different Chrome user profiles to keep the saved logins, sessions, and cookies separate?
  - MiguelHudnandez 4y ago
    This does work. Not quite as nice as Firefox’s multi-account containers because tabs can’t co-mingle in the same window. But totally serviceable. I use a combination of both every day at work. I like chrome for some things too because you can make a single-site-browser window in chrome, so certain websites can be treated like first class applications in the alt tab menu.
    - albert_e 4y ago
      > I like chrome for some things too because you can make a single-site-browser window in chrome, so certain websites can be treated like first class applications in the alt tab menu. yes absolutely. I did this for my local jupyter notebook server and pinned it to my taskbar. effectively works like a desktop app. The amount of storage that these chrome profiles occupy on the hard disk is sometimes irksome. I have not compared it to Firefox though.
- hardwaresofton 4y ago
  Hey if you haven't heard of Simple Tab Groups, also consider adding that to your setup: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr... I use them both together and it's amazing.
- pyro2927 4y ago
  If you use AWS SSO, I wrote an extension to automatically change containers when you log in. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-conta...
handedness 4y ago
Some (of many) good previous discussions: 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047213 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256603
password4321 4y ago
What would be needed to support this in private browsing mode? I would like to keep things separate and toss everything when I'm done.
- masklinn 4y ago
  The temporary containers extension is probably what you want. MAC is for separate but “permanent” environments.
- yoavm 4y ago
  Private browsing mode is essentially a new temporary container. It let's you keep things separate and toss them when you're done.
  - password4321 4y ago
    Yes, and I'd like to use more than one simultaneously.
    - Banochkin 4y ago
      Hi! Sorry to post here, but I couldn't find any way to contact you. You wrote here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30301639 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30301639 that you set up et and cloudflare tunnel. Can you tell me how? It doesn't work for me, et doesn't see an open port on the server.
      - password4321 4y ago
        Well I didn't mention Cloudflare Tunnel but to answer your question per https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1128ce9/cloudflare_tunnels_and_et/ https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1128ce9/cloudfl... 1. Eternal Terminal does not support ssh_config ProxyCommand, so both tunnels must be TCP. 2. Cloudflare Tunnel TCP proxies through cloudflared running locally on the client. https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/applications/non-http/arbitrary-tcp#2-connect-to-the-resource https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/application... #~/.ssh/config Host et.example.com Hostname 127.0.0.1 Port 10022 cloudflared access tcp --hostname ssh.example.com --url localhost:10022 & cloudflared access tcp --hostname et.example.com --url localhost:12022 & et et.example.com:12022 The following command must be run once to authenticate: cloudflared tunnel login
jbverschoor 4y ago
Last week I finally removed some bugs from my multi-instance chrome scripts on macOS. I basically have different applications of chrome, each with a different profile. They wacht have a different app icon, browser color, and extensions. It helps me focus a lot to have a different application (cmd-tab entry) for dev, media, general browsing. Social media and other time traps are blocked on my general and dev browser. Works very well I have to say. It copies Chrome using clonefiles (CoW on apfs) to save space. The only thing is that updating goes through the main browser (automatic updates are buggy in this case). And I have to codesign when there’s an update, but the scripts take care of that.
kibwen 4y ago
Can anyone clarify what this provides compared to the built-in container support in Firefox? On stock Firefox, it appears that I can do everything listed in the documentation above, with the exception that this extension appears to allow you to configure a domain to automatically open in a given container. Is that the only difference?
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  This is the user interface to that built-in container support.
  - sdk- 4y ago
    Mainly these two things: * Assign sites to a specific per container * Set VPN/Proxy per container
- ZiiS 4y ago
  It is really just the eaiest way to turn on the built in container support.
JW_00000 4y ago
Very useful if you have multiple Outlook accounts (e.g. school, work, personal), because outlook.com doesn't allow you to switch between accounts without logging out and back in.
- SamuelAdams 4y ago
  Or you hop between different AWS accounts.
  - matsemann 4y ago
    Or gcp or other Google products. They technically supports it by appending different authuser query params, but whenever you click something it's bound to choose the wrong one.
  - pram 4y ago
    I still can’t believe you can only be logged into one. Also when I re-log in it shows all the tutorial pop up boxes on everything EVERY SINGLE TIME.
icapybara 4y ago
I tried to like this the other day but it was a real hassle. I have 3 accounts on a website. I thought I could setup 3 different containers, one for each account. But it turns out that switching between containers is not simple. Whenever I tried to switch, I got a pop up from Firefox asking me if I was really sure I wanted to switch my default container for that website. Sometimes it sent me into a redirect loop with the prompt also. I did some googling and found that the consensus was that containers simply aren’t meant to be used that way. Firefox Multi Account Containers seem to assume you will always use one container for one website, and you can’t easily use multiple containers for a single site. Or at least, it’s very inconvenient to do so.
- echelon 4y ago
  Ugh, same. I thought I was the only one that found these to be impossibly buggy. The container setup/management UI is glitchy and it often forgets! containers that were created. It feels like a hack week project that got shipped to production. Despite having containers, Firefox sometimes wants to open the managed website in your current window. Or doesn't ask you at all when you have multiple containers for the same site. There's a lack of distinction between containerized / non-containerized windows. The colored tabs do not work or break down, leaving you in a mysterious or even dangerous state. The integration with password management tools is obviously rough. But coupled with the browser's own attempts at session management, plus containers, it's a UX nightmare to log into the right container. The last time I checked this out was last year. Maybe it's better now? Given Mozilla staffing, though, I'd guess not. I really want this to work, but the current solution is worse than none at all. I've made do with keeping multiple browsers for different tasks. Be careful if you use this. It breaks unexpectedly and that can lead to the wrong actions being taken in the wrong accounts.
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago
    The struggle is that the container addon does its own syncing, separate from the browser-wide Firefox account sync (that decides the soon should be installed). Because syncing is a separate step - yet it still happens concurrently/unpredictably in the background - there is no avoiding the default new user flow that creates 4 default containers at install.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
quickthrower2 4y ago
Great for testing logins on web apps. I used a FF plugin to do this, I presume having this in FF itself natively is new.
thomastjeffery 4y ago
I've been using this since it was new. I'm very frustrated to say the UI/UX hasn't seen any significant update. Containers are still synced separately, so any fresh install of Firefox will have the tutorial UX and the default 4 containers, even after syncing. Also, address bar completion is still monolithic, making it very easy to accidentally open a site in an undesired container. That can be worked around by adding every domain to a default container, but most of the utility of containers is to use several for a single domain, i.e. multiple email accounts each with their own container instances. Containers are a feature I find very valuable, but they really need their UX to be a core browser feature, not an addon.
- herklwlkjwher 4y ago
  container sync has been a thing for a while, but you have to enable it: https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png
  - fooqux 4y ago
    Where do you find that at? I just looked in both the Sync settings and Container settings and I do not see that setting.
    - thomastjeffery 4y ago
      It might be always-enabled now. Either way, containers sync is a separate event that can't be triggered manually.
    - herklwlkjwher 4y ago
      https://i.imgur.com/hMmnlB7.png https://i.imgur.com/hMmnlB7.png
      - j16sdiz 4y ago
        This is a setting under the extension page and is not searchable from firefox settings. Was expecting it under the standard account sync setting page.
jchw 4y ago
Pretty useful. Something I learned at some point was that you can actually combine this with Wireguard: If you dig into the extension, there's a feature that lets you set a SOCKS5 proxy for a profile. You can then point it to a running Wireproxy to go from SOCKS5 to Wireguard. Could be handy.
- mic-kul 4y ago
  @jchw that's neat! You've seen this in source or is it accessible somehow from the UI?
  - jchw 4y ago
    Accessible via the UI: click into the extension, click the right arrow next to a container, select "Manage This Container", then "Advanced Proxy Settings" and you can enter a SOCKS5 URI. And of course, this requires the aforementioned extension, not just the built-in container tabs feature. (Confusingly, Firefox does have this feature "cooked in", presumably they just expose a bunch of it via WebExtension APIs so that things like Multi-Account Containers can work.)
- grepfru_it 4y ago
  Also look at FoxyProxy which can enable unique proxy configurations on a per-domain basis
nickstinemates 4y ago
Experience is still lacking compared to Chrome profiles. Chrome profiles are so much better UX wise than any other solution, especially the color coding of the window.
- kjsingh 4y ago
  you can choose the color for container and it shows in ur tab
- account-5 4y ago
  Firefox does profiles too.
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago
    This is that.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      Containers != profiles
  - baggy_trough 4y ago
    But only with command line switches and relaunching, right?
    - account-5 4y ago
      Yes and from within the browser about:profiles And you can edit the shortcut to ask you which profile you want to use when you start Firefox.
    - fhrow4484 4y ago
      Never used command line for profiles, I'd just go type "about:profiles" > "Launch profile in new browser". This opens a new window with that profile, but you can switch between each window at will. The lack of discoverability of that "about:profiles" page is indeed a UX issue compared to chrome, but other that that it works pretty well. For most use cases, I find the more lightweight multi-account-containers more useful though.
slickdork 4y ago
I've been using this for a few years now and love it. I wish for two things. 1) i wish there was a way to automatically delete cookies/cache/history from specific containers every time. My personal container needs cookies and logins saved. My other containers don't need persistent cookies. 2) I've always wished for protonvpn to apply to only specific containers. Reading this now though, I see firefox's VPN does that so that's very cool, I might need to look into their vpn.
- mech422 4y ago
  I combine containers with profiles to achieve this... I have totally separate profiles for: 'temp' (delete everything on close) 'shopping' (containers for my common stores) 'finance' (containers for banks, etc) Gives a lot of flexibility, and I'm a lot less nervous opening stuff in 'temp' session when I know everything else is safely in totally different profiles/directories.
- yipeedipee 4y ago
  What you want is the Temporary Containers addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/temporary-con... It will let you open containers that trash cookies on close. You can also set certain URL's to always open in a tmp container which is useful for sites that only let you read x amount of article per month.
  - johnchristopher 4y ago
    How is it different/better from incognito mode ?
    - herklwlkjwher 4y ago
      incognito shares state between tabs. temporary containers can have a fresh container for every tab, so your tabs are isolated. you can also use it in a way that by default every site you visit is using a temporary container, with certain urls set to use their corresponding long term containers -- if i go to github, it opens in a github container, if i click a link to some random dev's site, it opens in a temp container, etc. to provide context, i still use incognito, but i consider incognito mostly about hiding things from myself -- i use it almost exclusively for porn, because i don't want my porn habits in my browser suggestions. temporary tabs still land in the recent urls and such.
pbowyer 4y ago
I've used these for over a year. Where the experience falls short is when using OAuth flows where either the requestor or provider is in a different container. E.g. Slack (work) => Twitter (social media) => ~~broken~~ as the redirect doesn't go back to the (work) container. I can't think of a fix because any there is would break the privacy of containers.
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  You can right click a link, and open it in the other container. It's clunky, but has worked for me so far. The UX for default containers could really benefit from some kind of context-awareness, but I'm not sure what that would look like. I'm thinking an intermediary tab that gives you a list of default containers (instead of only a single option or none at all) to choose from when opening a domain. Then, maybe, you could set a default choice based on the originating container. Or maybe a tree of sub-containers... This is where addon-defined UX makes sense.
- jedberg 4y ago
  The workaround I've used is to open slack.com in the Google container, etc. Not ideal, but it works. In some cases though I do have to switch my default browser to Chrome, log in, then switch it back.
starik36 4y ago
Love the feature and use it all the time. It would be great, if you could assign a home page to a container.
julianhul 4y ago
Would be cool if each container could generate a unique browser fingerprint. Right now they are sharing the same fingerprint, which isn't great for privacy.
- derbOac 4y ago
  I think this is what the Temporary Containers extension does? For me, it's a fundamental part of my browsing at this point, what I install immediately after installing an adblocker. I feel resentful that the Temporary Containers extension isn't available on mobile Firefox. To me it would be as if adblocking extensions wouldn't be available. It's one thing of many that seems really different about mobile Firefox, to a point where the cynical part of me feels like mobile Firefox is being obsequious to advertisers or something for some reason in a way desktop is not.
  - julianhul 4y ago
    Unfortunately the containers are all using the same fingerprint: https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers/issues/51 https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers/issues/51
- sfmike 4y ago
  would pay for this feature, does anyone know of another extension that does this to be used in conjunction?
qwerty456127 4y ago
A killer feature. Once I have tried Forefox's containers I am not going way...
paisawalla 4y ago
I've been using distinct FF profiles to separate work browsing from personal browsing on the same machine. I give each profile a differently colored theme to visually separate the two and discourage accidentally using one profile for another's purpose. Would multi-account containers be better for that workflow?
- darksfall 4y ago
  Succinctly yes, as this was what I was doing until recently. I had about 6 or 7 Firefox profiles encompassing 2 of my businesses, clients, and some administration of my fiancée's companies she runs. For each of my two businesses I had two separate profiles, one with personal accounts and a second I logged in with 'Admin' accounts for various services and infrastructure. It was a little tedious, but it worked. However I would waste so much time tabbing through multiple Firefox windows working out what was the correct one for the job in hand. Firefox Multi-Account containers got that down to two profiles, and I'd say I really only work 99% of the time in a single profile. Simple Tab Groups is invaluable too to reduce the tab 'clutter' that comes from working out of a single profile/window. Lastly as an added bonus, when I was comfortable with Multi-Account Containers, I successfully weened my fiancée off of Chrome and onto Firefox so she could flick between different accounts for those businesses she works with too.
oshanz 4y ago
[dead]
thrwawy74 4y ago
This is so much more powerful than first party isolation in Chrome. Firefox is on the only browser with something like this. I love having multiple tabs open and logged into the same website with different accounts/cookies. I also use this in conjunction with Temporary Containers so every tab is a new container automatically. If I left-click a link it will navigate keeping the same container. If I control+click it will open the link in a new/separate container. Also I use another one called Container Proxy so some containers go out through different VPNs. As much as Mozilla is fucking up Firefox currently, this is the 1 thing no other browser does better.
- 0x49d1 4y ago
  But why is this REALLY "more powerful than first party isolation"? I don't need this feature every day, in case I do - just create separate profile and it's easy to run it right from toolbar. The only usecase I can remember: specific domains can be automatically opened in container - and that's a good feature to have, but not really a dealbreaker. Another difference: organization as a tab in the same window - not that really needed, just a different UI for not commonly used feature.
  - thrwawy74 4y ago
    I use this with the Temporary Containers extension, so every tab is a new container, and a new session to the website I'm visiting. When I close the tab/container, all information about that site is lost. My browsing behavior - by default - is cookies live for as long as the container lives (and other cached elements). It makes me feel safer, browsing online, that I have to opt-in to remembering cookies and having them persist longer than the container. I can assign things over to the static containers like work-play-etc. For development I can have several tabs open with several independent sessions/logins going to the same website. When I tried to do this with Chrome it was 'clunky' to run separate Chrome profiles, which seem to be separate instances. I do remember an extension to do multiple in-the-same-browser sessions, but it was using a 3rd party service. I can have multiple sessions going in the same window in Firefox. As I understand, FPI prevents caching being used as a means to spy where you've been. My naive understanding is that containers encompass more than the cached elements FPI segregates, including things like fonts or localstorage. (I'm probably wrong) The only blindspot I see in Firefox is I wish preferences for extensions were per-container as well. I still use uMatrix, so if I've unblocked JS for a domain in 1 container, I don't want it unblocked for the same domain in an entirely separate container. Also, for some sites where I do "Sign in with Google", I like being able to 'stitch together' those session cookies by opening sites in the "Google" container so i can just waltz right into the "other site". On my other containers, they don't have the session cookie for Google in the background so I'm good. I use this for work-related things with SSO. Instead of naming the "static containers" "Work, Play, etc", I just call them the SSO-provider, and I know if I move an existing container into that or open a new tab using that container it will have the login I need. My default settings are pretty locked down. Umatrix blocks a lot in my new temporary containers, and then I gradually unblock things.
cecida 4y ago
Social media is dead. It was never social. If I had ads to sell, then I wouldn't be looking to spend the budget on deserts like Facebook and Twitter.
mteam88 4y ago
Perhaps a renaming would help this take off... Containers is overused in the dev world, and is rather ambiguous in the "outside."
- ttctciyf 4y ago
  "Personas"?
- lockedinspace 4y ago
  Cargo containers from those big ships are well-known and people can assume that each container brings a set of homogeneous items. The word "container" pictures an isolated thing, which is what the add-on provides.
denkmoon 4y ago
Couldn't live without this feature, I just wish I could have a ublock ruleset/whitelist per container.
wslh 4y ago
Fifteen years ago I developed CookiePie [1]. You can see in the video opening two different gmail accounts in different tabs on the same window. This was a relatively successful Firefox extension to use separate and temporary cookie containers in different tabs. Since the Firefox API does include these capabilities, it was a pure hack, but it worked, just it was impossible to cope with every new upgrade of Firefox. Briefly, the core of the hack was this: (1) Firefox network hooks were not linked to UI tabs. (2) So, I traverse all the object graph and find indirect links. (3) I used those links to connect the network hooks with the UI, even when they conceptually were independent from the FF extension. I sent the extension to the "Extend Firefox Prize" but didn't came with a single mention. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBkB-Yp-zM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBkB-Yp-zM
henchik 4y ago
Coolest feature is per container socks5 support so each container can send traffic through a different socks 5 server. Any VPN offering socks5 on their gateways should work. I'm using IVPN which expose socks5 on each of their WireGuard servers - there is demo on their blog - https://www.ivpn.net/blog/socks5-proxies-app-based-vpn-tunnels/ https://www.ivpn.net/blog/socks5-proxies-app-based-vpn-tunne...
- 0x49d1 4y ago
  With different profiles you have different settings -> completely independent connection settings, if you want. What's the difference here with Chromium profiles for example?
  - bjord 4y ago
    I think ff's containers are generally more powerful. Here's a random example: I live outside of the country I was born in, but I still have bank accounts and stuff there. These bank accounts freak out if I log in from my actual IP. Rather than needing to run a system-wide VPN every time I want to use one of those sites, I can set a rule that will automatically open them in a container (in the same window) with preset custom connection settings.
- littlecranky67 4y ago
  So sad that this feature (amongst many others) was present in Opera v12 (before they switched to Chromium). Still miss that browser, best UX ever.
dabernathy89 4y ago
I could not have done my last job without this feature, because it required assuming multiple dummy identities across various chat platforms communicating with each other. I still use it to separate out accounts for different parts of my life (work vs conference planner vs personal).
- ficklepickle 4y ago
  That sounds kinda ominous, like you were pumping NFTs or spreading government propaganda or something.
  - dabernathy89 4y ago
    Heh - no, just a tool to let companies support chat interoperability between different apps. Lots of companies are running multiple chat apps simultaneously, either due to acquisitions or because there's a department that stubbornly refuses to migrate to a new one.
rc_mob 4y ago
How is this different from the super old firefox profiles feature?
- superdeeda 4y ago
  You can have tabs open in different containers all within the same window.
nvln 4y ago
I've been using this for a few months now and I love it. Along side temporary containers[1] and tridactyl[2] which gives - auto containerization based on url match - keyboard driven way to open new pages in a specific container FF transforms into a powerful browser OS running applications with hard boundaries. The only UX issue (which admittedly could be because I have changed the theme to be minimal by hacking userChrome) is that sometimes the temporary containers I spawn are the ones I need to retain (user storage) etc and I tend to forget that and loose data. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con... [2]: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl
- sfmike 4y ago
  whats a use case for temporary containers? Throwaway email? Does the called on server think you're a first time visitor each container?
  - nvln 4y ago
    Yeah, its a good way to circumvent tracking / fingerprinting mechanisms. Anonymization primitive. But the primary usecase for me is to access a rarely used account temporarily without having to logout and login from the main account (AWS, Cloudflare, Google, etc).
time4tea 4y ago
Firefox multi account containers are amazing. For example : multiple o365 accounts, fb segregation, multiple Google accounts.... Amazing feature, underrated.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Yep, only thing it doesn't work well with for me it's teams web (because teams is so boneheaded in that you can't be logged in to two tenants at the same time). Osteen the container tab gets stuck in a reload loop and then the dropped icecream picture "Oops something went wrong".
  - dicknuckle 4y ago
    Not even with two separate containers?
    - wkat4242 4y ago
      Yeah Teams just refuses to work in either container. Only works properly when it's in the main instance of Firefox. This is what it was like a while ago though, I haven't tested it recently because I haven't had a need to log in to other tenants anymore since I moved jobs.
shmerl 4y ago
It's good, but still lacking some useful features: * SOCKS5 proxy per container setting. * More custom icons and colors for container.
- zamadatix 4y ago
  SOCKS5 proxy per containers setting is there. Click the extension icon (in the toolbar not in the url bar) -> Manage Containers -> click the container you want to manage -> Advanced proxy settings
  - shmerl 4y ago
    I think it's not working due not to not proxying DNS requests. This extension handles it correctly: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-proxy/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-pro...
paulpauper 4y ago
About time this happened. I have been looking for a free multi-container solution for years.
skybrian 4y ago
Why should I use this instead of multiple profiles?
- Zecc 4y ago
  - You can have multiples tabs in different containers in a single window. - You can tell your browser you always want to open a given site in a given container, so if you forget and try to open in the wrong one, it will remind you and give you the option to use the right one. - The name of the container you're in is shown at the end of the address bar, in the unlikely case you forget. Every tab has a thin line of a different color per containers as well, so it's easier to tell them apart. None of these things offers a big advantage over using virtual desktops, for example, but it's good to have choices.
  - Queue29 4y ago
    > You can have multiples tabs in different containers in a single window. I literally want the _opposite_ of that. Chrome makes it so that a Window is specific to a profile. Makes it very simple to keep say Work and Home profiles separate, for example. Especially if you set color schemes for each window.
    - superdeeda 4y ago
      > I literally want the _opposite_ of that. That's fine, but not everyone does. I think both are useful and would prefer a browser that can support both profiles and "containers.
    - kasabali 4y ago
      You can use the old profiles feature for this.
- mikl 4y ago
  - You don’t need separate windows - You can configure rules, so onlinebanking.example.com (or whatever) always open in a separate profile for security. - Your history/bookmarks/extensions/settings/etc. are not separate per profile.
ggm 4y ago
Interacts badly with some GOOGLE rest-form URLs because you can't assign a /0/thing path to more than one M-A-C and google don't distinguish your google profile (identity) in the URL. Clumsy UI. It's useful (I use it) but its just not as simple as it could be. Auto assigning a URL to a container is complicated. Opening and re-opening a URL in a container is complicated. Saving container state so you can re-open the same things is .. (you guessed it) complicated.
dtx1 4y ago
I'd never trust something like this for anything serious, especially when you can just use firejail to isolate instances on a kernel level.
sunsunsunsun 4y ago
I tried this a while back but I've found having two instances of Firefox for work/personal much easier to seperate my life with. I just hotkeyed the launch of the work and personal one and use different themes on the two browsers.
- loicelthesea 4y ago
  This is the way
snorrah 4y ago
Some ui/ux issues aside, this is an incredibly useful feature for both work and personal use. An example of it being useful for work: I can have several AWS consoles for different environments open, so I can quickly compare configs between environments. For personal use, I can contain facebook inside its own container so it’s cookies don’t pollute my regular browsing
nuker 4y ago
Do we need Containers if using Private browsing for everything? Just curious. With saved passswords it is just one or 2 clicks to login when needed.
- WirelessGigabit 4y ago
  With containers you can retain the info. InPrivate stuff is gone once you close the browser (bar any nationstate spy). It's also useful because InPrivate windows share a cookie jar in Firefox.
  - nuker 4y ago
    > InPrivate windows share a cookie jar in Firefox Wow, should it be a bug? Im Safari user, have little FF experience.
    - ficklepickle 4y ago
      It certainly defied my expectations. Chrome is the same. All I can think is that they wanted an inprivate window's tabs to share a jar and that then gets kinda complicated with popping tabs into their own window, putting them back, flicking between those accidentally while dragging a tab, etc. Looking at the docs it appears that Safari gets around this by just having a separate jar per tab? On desktop at least, mobile appears to be shared.
      - nuker 4y ago
        Just checked mobile Safari, looks not shared. Open private tab, login to Amazon. Open another private tab, go to Amazon - not signed in.
Renaud 4y ago
Why don't we have complete main domain isolation as an option? It would work like containers, but they would be automatically created for each domain you visit. Go visit youtube.com and anything loaded from that page is in the same container. You'd have to log into each google property as the sites would be separated from one another, and there would probably be a need to merge these containers if say www.example.com and example.com are the same site (or automerge if there is a 302 redirect).
- freeplay 4y ago
  This add-on has that functionality.
  - Renaud 4y ago
    Does it? Did I miss something in the settings?
- webjunkie 4y ago
  Sounds like you are suggesting First-Party Isolation (FPI) which you can enable in Firefox. Don't know what the state of it is, seems to be off by default, or depending on the tracking protection setting.
hardwaresofton 4y ago
I use multi-account containers and they are wonderful. Combined with Simple Tab Groups[0] I have different workspaces set up, all with different creds and different auto-logins. Chrome has a version of this that doesn't work properly (much like "Incognito" mode doesn't work properly). This should be one of the biggest selling points of FF. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr...
- Nadya 4y ago
  Tab Groups were better when they were baked into the browser. They were extremely buggy when the code was removed and moved into an extension. Not only often losing all of my tabs - but completely forgetting all of my tab groups altogether. Causing me to lose not only important data but also having to re-organize all my tabs into tab groups only to inevitably have to redo all the work next time FF decided it wanted to crash (which was multiple times a day at that point due to the extension...). It happened with such regularity that I grew sick of it and it was the single motivating factor that pushed me to use Chrome as my default browser. I can only hope/assume they've gotten better since then - but it burned me really, really bad. So much that it still pisses me off talking about it all these years later. Two of the original features that were extremely buggy were a hotkey to open up a visual overview of tab groups (originally Ctrl+Shift+E) and a way to search for a tab and reduce the number of visible tab groups to only groups containing a tab matching that search. I see in the screenshots that this functionality seems to exist but also (based on the color coding) plays nicely with containers now. Would you be willing to vouch that it is more stable nowadays? Because if it isn't a steaming pile of shit that crashes if you so much as look in its direction that would certainly motivate me to return back to Firefox.
  - hardwaresofton 4y ago
    > Tab Groups were better when they were baked into the browser. They were extremely buggy when the code was removed and moved into an extension. Not only often losing all of my tabs - but completely forgetting all of my tab groups altogether. Causing me to lose not only important data but also having to re-organize all my tabs into tab groups only to inevitably have to redo all the work next time FF decided it wanted to crash (which was multiple times a day at that point due to the extension...). It happened with such regularity that I grew sick of it and it was the single motivating factor that pushed me to use Chrome as my default browser. This hasn't happened to me -- my biggest issues have been around mistakenly clicking into a browser group in a second browser window. Since I have two browsers open, I keep one for sort of ephemeral stuff which isn't on a browser group at all, then main stuff (email, slack, etc) on the one. Note that pinned tabs also work fine -- I have a pinned tab that's not in a container at all (my personal email) and it's fine across all groups. If it helps, the extension now takes copious backups across browser upgradest at the very least (that I have to delete from time to time), files named `STF-backups-FF-<FF version>`. > I can only hope/assume they've gotten better since then - but it burned me really, really bad. So much that it still pisses me off talking about it all these years later. > Two of the original features that were extremely buggy were a hotkey to open up a visual overview of tab groups (originally Ctrl+Shift+E) and a way to search for a tab and reduce the number of visible tab groups to only groups containing a tab matching that search. Sorry to hear that... I have to say that I don't use the hotkeys that much -- I don't use a visual over view, I just go up to the add on, click it, switch into the workspace and usually I'm there for an 1-4 hours. Maybe you could look through the release notes? I don't know what the version you used last was, but I defnitely haven't lost tabs or been very frustrated with STG in a long time. The color coding is fantastic. I have most groups linked to a container profile, all new tabs open in the profile and everything is tidy, separate, and color coded. I can definitely vouch that it's more stable these days -- I am daily driving it and haven't thought about it in what has to be months to years. It's a crucial part of my workflow -- I use it to seriously separate work that I do for various projects (of course I have to re-login to Github, Gitlab, etc).
mackrevinack 4y ago
these containers come in real handy when you want to watch a youtube video but you don't want the youtube algorithm recommending you similar videos for weeks just because you clicked on one video. its similar to opening the video in an incognito window but with a container it will remember whatever cookie settings you choose instead of asking you each time
ctxc 4y ago
One thing that's been working well for me for years: just use separate browsers for separate things. Firefox, FireFox Nightly. It takes little time for you to understand the context(you see the icon or browser and know exactly what "profile" it is), there's no suggestion or link interference etc.
- ShinTakuya 4y ago
  It's fine if you only have a few separate concerns to separate (similarly you can also use multiple browser profiles) but it's not really scalable if you want to separate 10s of sites, clients, etc.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
alipitch 4y ago
I often visit news sites such as Hacker News. Can I use this "multi-account container" addon + something to get an experience like "iPhone Screen Time" and track my viewing time on news sites?
jdfellow 4y ago
I love containers but I've started to phase out using this extension and preferring Temporary Containers for most of my use cases.
jerrygoyal 4y ago
any alternative for chromium?
jazzgott 4y ago
I don't see any mention of Firefox extension "Open external links in a container" https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-url-in-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-url-in-c... This extension gives the ability to create bookmarks that open in a specific container automatically. When dealing with AWS accounts that are configured to use SSO. I’ll have to use IdP to login into awsapps.com. Then I have to choose AWS account and then click a Role that I would like to use for session. This is troublesome and breaks my flow. I wanted a way to quickly jump into a specific account without thinking too much. For each AWS account that I need to use, I’ve copied a link from awsapps.com pointing at specific permissions set. When opening this link I will be taken to a specific AWS account, and if the session is expired it will prompt for IdP login and proceed to AWS account. Next, I’ve created a bookmark and crafted a url that uses the mentioned extension. It will open link in to a “staging” account in Firefox container company-staging.
taubek 4y ago
This seems like such great feature. Why isn't in more prominent? Would this be replacement for Chrome profiles?
sfmike 4y ago
- will the mozilla vpn keep a static ip assigned per container? - is the browser footprint completely unique per container where the website called on thinks you're a fully different user? or its just seperating cookies and sessions? - is this just to keep accounts seperate or helps with privacy?
timvisee 4y ago
Containers are fantastic! Must have when developing/testing webapps with different user accounts, using a few containers. Miles better than juggling with other browsers or incognito mode.
freeCandy 4y ago
This is quite a unique feature that I don't think exists in any other browser, I'm surprised that this isn't being used to market Firefox.
thiscatis 4y ago
Combining this with aws-vault is such a nice little hack when logging in with multiple AWS assume-roles across various accounts!
kirimita 4y ago
(As I said in a previous discussion about Firefox) I really wish it was possible to enable DRM for a single container.
flurdy 4y ago
I Love the Multi account feature. And its related extentions Google and facebook containers. And especially the Temporary Container extension. [1] Only hassle I have is that I sometimes have to disable the google one if a site requires google auth but is in a non google container. Redirection wont work otherwise. Only temporarily until auth has finished. Also I like the integration with Mozilla VPN per container. But I wish they would support disabling the VPN for some or in reverse only enable tunneling for some containers. There was a an open issue for that. [2] [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con... [2] https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/2259 https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/2...
pharmakom 4y ago
they need to roll this into Firefox proper. Containers are an essential feature when dealing with multiple cloud environments.
- sonar_un 4y ago
  I wish Firefox just had proper profiles. Multi account containers are absolutely no replacement for proper profiles with separate bookmarks, extensions, cookies, etc.
  - untoxicness 4y ago
    What kind of features are not covered by the current implementation of profiles? <https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...>
nikeee 4y ago
I'm using it since it was launched. For my use case, it lacked the ability to use a different container for a page based on the entire URL, not just the domain. For example, I've certain GitHub orgs that I'm using a separate account for. So the built-in ability to open sites based on the domain does not work for me. I found the extension containerise [1], which offers the ability to assign containers based on globbing and/or a regex pattern. It's not something a typical "normal" user would need, so it's reasonable to not include this kind of feature in the built-in account container implementation. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/containerise/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/containerise/
Cort3z 4y ago
This feature is possibly the main reason why I use FireFox in stead of any alternative. It is just so very nice to be able to log into multiple google accounts (in my case) at the same time.
maverick74 4y ago
Here's an interesting link: How Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection and container extensions work together https://addons.mozilla.org/blog/how-firefoxs-total-cookie-protection-container-extensions-work-together/ https://addons.mozilla.org/blog/how-firefoxs-total-cookie-pr...
KaiserPro 4y ago
Why is it worth the effort? If your company uses gmail, or any other single sign on, its a really good tool for separating work/home digital life. multiple accounts for the same site Facebook/instagram/reddit/youtube is really hard to have separate non-linked logins. Plus its a massive faff logging in and out. assigning accounts to tabs saves time. keeping your youtube recommendations clear Youtube's recommendation algorithm looks at all you are playing and figures out what you should watch next. If you see something music based, then it will hard pivot your recommendations to music. If you have something populist, then expect a fucktonne of clickbait. Have a "clean" and "dirty" profile really improves the quality of the videos I get shown.
andrepd 4y ago
How does this compare to using First-party Isolation and Cookie Auto-delete (on whitelist mode)?
- sdk- 4y ago
  Before FPI, containers were a good way to isolate cookies. Nowadays, it's a bit less useful for that. However, it still offers a nice solution to connect to multiple accounts simultaneously, have a different vpn/proxy per container. Also, it could be extended to isolate more things (e.g. different level of privacy settings, history, extensions, etc)
e12e 4y ago
I'm not sure how this fits against profiles, which has been in Firefox since Netscape Navigator? Does containers also allow multiple winddows to share a profile? For example, I have a work profile, and a home profile - and each has a window for browsing (eg: hn), and a window on my laptop screen for videochat (so when I look at the chat, I don't look way above the camera - which happen if I look at my main screen). I can move tabs between these windows too (eg: quickly read something while still "looking" at the camera). Does containers also allow this "single container, multiple windows" use-case?
- jerieljan 4y ago
  I have limited experience in using multiple Firefox profiles, but assuming it works like Chrome's, I like Multi-Account Containers instead because it lets me mix and match tabs running on different containers if you really have to. I mean, I appreciate keeping a single window dedicated to my Work container running all of my work tabs to properly isolate my sessions, but sometimes I have services that I have to login on other profiles (e.g., I use a consultant Miro account that I DO want to run on the same window, even if it's not using my Work container). It's also a lot easier to identify which tabs are running which containers thanks to their colored tab markers and the container name indicated on the address bar. It's essential if you have to say, login to two separate Gmail sessions on the same window without their sessions getting mixed up. Finally, it's different from profiles because you can optionally associate websites to containers (e.g., if I open ycombinator.com it's opened using my Personal container while opening miro.com automatically loads a different container, while I disable this feature for sites that I login across multiple containers for different contexts, such as Gmail or the AWS Console)
fnord77 4y ago
> Additionally, you can integrate Mozilla VPN into each container to add an extra layer of protection to your container tabs. so you can have a different IP address per tab?
- sdk- 4y ago
  Per container.
NoGravitas 4y ago
I really wish that this, and the other extensions it enables, were supported on Firefox for Android. There are a number of browsers that throw away your browsing data on every session (Firefox Focus, Duck Duck Go), and regular Firefox has the option to, but what I really want is to save cookies and other browsing data only on particular sites where I not only have an account, but also use it enough that logging in with autofill is too much of a hassle. Temporary containers allows this on desktop, but there's no mobile support.
- efreak 4y ago
  If you're not looking to sign into multiples accounts on the same website, look into state partitioning/first party isolation. If you are looking to sign into multiple accounts, I use multiple browsers for this.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
  Cookie AutoDelete does it well: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode... It works on Firefox mobile beta and nightly with an addons collection: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/10/20/firefox-beta-for-android-now-supports-custom-add-on-collections/ https://www.ghacks.net/2022/10/20/firefox-beta-for-android-n...
e40 4y ago
I tried it before, but was frustrated due to sync issues. Also, it seems like it's been abandoned, since it has changed little since the introduction. Here are some thoughtful 1 star reviews: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1898521/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1900808/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1898273/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1894778/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1880788/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1810274/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... Honestly, my own testing and all these complaints and that it hasn't been given simple care and feeding mean I'm going to avoid it until all this changes.
mattpallissard 4y ago
I want to see a systemd integration on Linux. Each account gets it's own slice, each tab gets it's own transient unit. You get nested cgroups and accounting for free. Eliminating the resource hog problem and prioritizing workloads.
- mutant 4y ago
  Brilliant concept! I absolutely love this idea. Shame Mozilla seems to have stopped innovation. )≠
waynesonfire 4y ago
is the button to confirm opening the the url in a new container broken for anyone else? it just doesn't respond for me and has been this way for a while.
noisy_boy 4y ago
This is a great feature that has a terrible implementation. It stubbornly tries to open both Gmail and Youtube in Google container. Even if I remove that container and create separate ones for Gmail and Youtube, when I try to open those sites in their respective containers, it will refuse to open it. If I restart firefox and retry, it goes back to creating the Google container and open both in that container. Absolutely terrible UX for something that could be as simple as: 1. Right click on a tab and let me select a container 2. Ask if I want to remember it. 3. Actually remember it. It actually shows the container in the address-bar which is a perfect spot for me to click on that and change it to another container - but noooo, that would be so obvious hence clicking on it does nothing. Great UX. Everytime I want to support Firefox and come back to it, shit like this just drives me mad and makes me go to the terrible but polished alternative of Chrome. Sigh.
mckravchyk 4y ago
I don't get how Chrome does not have it and very few people are aware that there's this browser called Firefox that has this feature that's very hard to live without. Another thing Ctrl+Tab MRU. I just could not get back to using Chrome for these 2 reasons alone.
- Shakahs 4y ago
  Because it would interfere with Google's data collection and so they don't want you to have it. Instead of having disposable browsing containers they make Chrome itself automatically log into your Google account, then offer to continuously upload all of your browsing data via Google Chrome Sync. It's an anti-privacy user story.

703 points by throw0101c 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Multiple Profiles - for many years. Work, Personal, etc. I'd love if Firefox as a bare URL handler ASKED, with an out of any profile context dialog, WHICH profile and window to load a URL in.

ryan-duve 4y ago

We use different AWS accounts for different purposes at work. It would be an extreme productivity loss if I had to go back to using something other than Firefox's containers.

handedness 4y ago
It's not an identical feature, but I have some workflows which require Chromium and compartmentalization between a multiple accounts, and Brave's profiles aren't a bad alternative.
- zamadatix 4y ago
  For someone that hasn't used Brave in a while - what's the difference between Brave profiles and profiles in other Chromium browsers?
  - handedness 4y ago
    There may be other Chromium-based browsers which do this, but none that I use: on launch the user is (optionally) prompted with a profile selection tool, with additional options to create a new profile or go into a guest session. I appreciate this because without it I often end up wondering why something isn't behaving properly, and after a moment of confusion then realize I'm in the wrong profile. It's not perfect, and I prefer Firefox's rules-driven containers, but for anything which requires Chrome I've found it sufficient.
    - zamadatix 4y ago
      Ah, that sounds nearly identical to the standard launch-time profile picker from the Chromium base - example from Chrome https://i.imgur.com/7b7YqUY.png https://i.imgur.com/7b7YqUY.png
      - handedness 4y ago
        Sure is, thanks. At the time I settled on Brave for that use case I saw no such behavior from any of my other Chromium-based browsers. Either Brave upstreamed it, or I did something wrong on my end (likely).
        vxNsr 4y ago
        Pretty sure the setting has been around for a while, possibly upstreamed from brave but I feel like it was around before then. It’s pretty hidden tho, and most ppl don’t want it and get confused why it even exists so it’s possible there isn’t great documentation on it.
    - chupasaurus 4y ago
      In Firefox this prompt is invoked with "-P" argument.
- bspammer 4y ago
  Chrome itself has profiles, which I use for exactly the same use case (multiple AWS logins)
  - handedness 4y ago
    You're correct. It does, but the last time I tried it it does not prompt on launch as Brave can, which provides a nice reality check for my addled mind. I dislike certain aspects of Brave for other reasons, but this is why I have an unholy number of browsers installed and end up making use of nearly all of them regularly, unfortunately.
trusz 4y ago
The Arc browser [1] could be nice alternative as it handles profiles pretty smooth. [1]: https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/
- eliaspro 4y ago
  This site basically says nothing except "sign up".
  - vidyesh 4y ago
    I have heard so much about this browser from dev & tech podcasts and websites[1]. Those who use it really love it, I wish their website had a video demo at least. This landing page has some screenshots at least https://students.arc.net/ https://students.arc.net/ [1]https://www.theverge.com/23462235/arc-web-browser-review https://www.theverge.com/23462235/arc-web-browser-review
- toastercat 4y ago
  This smells like pure marketing, incl the company's website. I'd rather use an open-source browser like Firefox.
albert_e 4y ago
Other than separate windows... is it very different if we use different Chrome user profiles to keep the saved logins, sessions, and cookies separate?
- MiguelHudnandez 4y ago
  This does work. Not quite as nice as Firefox’s multi-account containers because tabs can’t co-mingle in the same window. But totally serviceable. I use a combination of both every day at work. I like chrome for some things too because you can make a single-site-browser window in chrome, so certain websites can be treated like first class applications in the alt tab menu.
  - albert_e 4y ago
    > I like chrome for some things too because you can make a single-site-browser window in chrome, so certain websites can be treated like first class applications in the alt tab menu. yes absolutely. I did this for my local jupyter notebook server and pinned it to my taskbar. effectively works like a desktop app. The amount of storage that these chrome profiles occupy on the hard disk is sometimes irksome. I have not compared it to Firefox though.
hardwaresofton 4y ago
Hey if you haven't heard of Simple Tab Groups, also consider adding that to your setup: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr... I use them both together and it's amazing.
pyro2927 4y ago
If you use AWS SSO, I wrote an extension to automatically change containers when you log in. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-conta...

handedness 4y ago

Some (of many) good previous discussions: 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047213 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256603

password4321 4y ago

What would be needed to support this in private browsing mode? I would like to keep things separate and toss everything when I'm done.

masklinn 4y ago
The temporary containers extension is probably what you want. MAC is for separate but “permanent” environments.
yoavm 4y ago
Private browsing mode is essentially a new temporary container. It let's you keep things separate and toss them when you're done.
- password4321 4y ago
  Yes, and I'd like to use more than one simultaneously.
  - Banochkin 4y ago
    Hi! Sorry to post here, but I couldn't find any way to contact you. You wrote here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30301639 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30301639 that you set up et and cloudflare tunnel. Can you tell me how? It doesn't work for me, et doesn't see an open port on the server.
    - password4321 4y ago
      Well I didn't mention Cloudflare Tunnel but to answer your question per https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1128ce9/cloudflare_tunnels_and_et/ https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1128ce9/cloudfl... 1. Eternal Terminal does not support ssh_config ProxyCommand, so both tunnels must be TCP. 2. Cloudflare Tunnel TCP proxies through cloudflared running locally on the client. https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/applications/non-http/arbitrary-tcp#2-connect-to-the-resource https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/application... #~/.ssh/config Host et.example.com Hostname 127.0.0.1 Port 10022 cloudflared access tcp --hostname ssh.example.com --url localhost:10022 & cloudflared access tcp --hostname et.example.com --url localhost:12022 & et et.example.com:12022 The following command must be run once to authenticate: cloudflared tunnel login

jbverschoor 4y ago

Last week I finally removed some bugs from my multi-instance chrome scripts on macOS. I basically have different applications of chrome, each with a different profile. They wacht have a different app icon, browser color, and extensions. It helps me focus a lot to have a different application (cmd-tab entry) for dev, media, general browsing. Social media and other time traps are blocked on my general and dev browser. Works very well I have to say. It copies Chrome using clonefiles (CoW on apfs) to save space. The only thing is that updating goes through the main browser (automatic updates are buggy in this case). And I have to codesign when there’s an update, but the scripts take care of that.

kibwen 4y ago

Can anyone clarify what this provides compared to the built-in container support in Firefox? On stock Firefox, it appears that I can do everything listed in the documentation above, with the exception that this extension appears to allow you to configure a domain to automatically open in a given container. Is that the only difference?

thomastjeffery 4y ago
This is the user interface to that built-in container support.
- sdk- 4y ago
  Mainly these two things: * Assign sites to a specific per container * Set VPN/Proxy per container
ZiiS 4y ago
It is really just the eaiest way to turn on the built in container support.

JW_00000 4y ago

Very useful if you have multiple Outlook accounts (e.g. school, work, personal), because outlook.com doesn't allow you to switch between accounts without logging out and back in.

SamuelAdams 4y ago
Or you hop between different AWS accounts.
- matsemann 4y ago
  Or gcp or other Google products. They technically supports it by appending different authuser query params, but whenever you click something it's bound to choose the wrong one.
- pram 4y ago
  I still can’t believe you can only be logged into one. Also when I re-log in it shows all the tutorial pop up boxes on everything EVERY SINGLE TIME.

icapybara 4y ago

I tried to like this the other day but it was a real hassle. I have 3 accounts on a website. I thought I could setup 3 different containers, one for each account. But it turns out that switching between containers is not simple. Whenever I tried to switch, I got a pop up from Firefox asking me if I was really sure I wanted to switch my default container for that website. Sometimes it sent me into a redirect loop with the prompt also. I did some googling and found that the consensus was that containers simply aren’t meant to be used that way. Firefox Multi Account Containers seem to assume you will always use one container for one website, and you can’t easily use multiple containers for a single site. Or at least, it’s very inconvenient to do so.

echelon 4y ago
Ugh, same. I thought I was the only one that found these to be impossibly buggy. The container setup/management UI is glitchy and it often forgets! containers that were created. It feels like a hack week project that got shipped to production. Despite having containers, Firefox sometimes wants to open the managed website in your current window. Or doesn't ask you at all when you have multiple containers for the same site. There's a lack of distinction between containerized / non-containerized windows. The colored tabs do not work or break down, leaving you in a mysterious or even dangerous state. The integration with password management tools is obviously rough. But coupled with the browser's own attempts at session management, plus containers, it's a UX nightmare to log into the right container. The last time I checked this out was last year. Maybe it's better now? Given Mozilla staffing, though, I'd guess not. I really want this to work, but the current solution is worse than none at all. I've made do with keeping multiple browsers for different tasks. Be careful if you use this. It breaks unexpectedly and that can lead to the wrong actions being taken in the wrong accounts.
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  The struggle is that the container addon does its own syncing, separate from the browser-wide Firefox account sync (that decides the soon should be installed). Because syncing is a separate step - yet it still happens concurrently/unpredictably in the background - there is no avoiding the default new user flow that creates 4 default containers at install.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

quickthrower2 4y ago

Great for testing logins on web apps. I used a FF plugin to do this, I presume having this in FF itself natively is new.

thomastjeffery 4y ago

I've been using this since it was new. I'm very frustrated to say the UI/UX hasn't seen any significant update. Containers are still synced separately, so any fresh install of Firefox will have the tutorial UX and the default 4 containers, even after syncing. Also, address bar completion is still monolithic, making it very easy to accidentally open a site in an undesired container. That can be worked around by adding every domain to a default container, but most of the utility of containers is to use several for a single domain, i.e. multiple email accounts each with their own container instances. Containers are a feature I find very valuable, but they really need their UX to be a core browser feature, not an addon.

herklwlkjwher 4y ago
container sync has been a thing for a while, but you have to enable it: https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png
- fooqux 4y ago
  Where do you find that at? I just looked in both the Sync settings and Container settings and I do not see that setting.
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago
    It might be always-enabled now. Either way, containers sync is a separate event that can't be triggered manually.
  - herklwlkjwher 4y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/hMmnlB7.png https://i.imgur.com/hMmnlB7.png
    - j16sdiz 4y ago
      This is a setting under the extension page and is not searchable from firefox settings. Was expecting it under the standard account sync setting page.

jchw 4y ago

Pretty useful. Something I learned at some point was that you can actually combine this with Wireguard: If you dig into the extension, there's a feature that lets you set a SOCKS5 proxy for a profile. You can then point it to a running Wireproxy to go from SOCKS5 to Wireguard. Could be handy.

mic-kul 4y ago
@jchw that's neat! You've seen this in source or is it accessible somehow from the UI?
- jchw 4y ago
  Accessible via the UI: click into the extension, click the right arrow next to a container, select "Manage This Container", then "Advanced Proxy Settings" and you can enter a SOCKS5 URI. And of course, this requires the aforementioned extension, not just the built-in container tabs feature. (Confusingly, Firefox does have this feature "cooked in", presumably they just expose a bunch of it via WebExtension APIs so that things like Multi-Account Containers can work.)
grepfru_it 4y ago
Also look at FoxyProxy which can enable unique proxy configurations on a per-domain basis

nickstinemates 4y ago

Experience is still lacking compared to Chrome profiles. Chrome profiles are so much better UX wise than any other solution, especially the color coding of the window.

kjsingh 4y ago
you can choose the color for container and it shows in ur tab
account-5 4y ago
Firefox does profiles too.
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  This is that.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Containers != profiles
- baggy_trough 4y ago
  But only with command line switches and relaunching, right?
  - account-5 4y ago
    Yes and from within the browser about:profiles And you can edit the shortcut to ask you which profile you want to use when you start Firefox.
  - fhrow4484 4y ago
    Never used command line for profiles, I'd just go type "about:profiles" > "Launch profile in new browser". This opens a new window with that profile, but you can switch between each window at will. The lack of discoverability of that "about:profiles" page is indeed a UX issue compared to chrome, but other that that it works pretty well. For most use cases, I find the more lightweight multi-account-containers more useful though.

slickdork 4y ago

I've been using this for a few years now and love it. I wish for two things. 1) i wish there was a way to automatically delete cookies/cache/history from specific containers every time. My personal container needs cookies and logins saved. My other containers don't need persistent cookies. 2) I've always wished for protonvpn to apply to only specific containers. Reading this now though, I see firefox's VPN does that so that's very cool, I might need to look into their vpn.

mech422 4y ago
I combine containers with profiles to achieve this... I have totally separate profiles for: 'temp' (delete everything on close) 'shopping' (containers for my common stores) 'finance' (containers for banks, etc) Gives a lot of flexibility, and I'm a lot less nervous opening stuff in 'temp' session when I know everything else is safely in totally different profiles/directories.
yipeedipee 4y ago
What you want is the Temporary Containers addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/temporary-con... It will let you open containers that trash cookies on close. You can also set certain URL's to always open in a tmp container which is useful for sites that only let you read x amount of article per month.
- johnchristopher 4y ago
  How is it different/better from incognito mode ?
  - herklwlkjwher 4y ago
    incognito shares state between tabs. temporary containers can have a fresh container for every tab, so your tabs are isolated. you can also use it in a way that by default every site you visit is using a temporary container, with certain urls set to use their corresponding long term containers -- if i go to github, it opens in a github container, if i click a link to some random dev's site, it opens in a temp container, etc. to provide context, i still use incognito, but i consider incognito mostly about hiding things from myself -- i use it almost exclusively for porn, because i don't want my porn habits in my browser suggestions. temporary tabs still land in the recent urls and such.

pbowyer 4y ago

I've used these for over a year. Where the experience falls short is when using OAuth flows where either the requestor or provider is in a different container. E.g. Slack (work) => Twitter (social media) => ~~broken~~ as the redirect doesn't go back to the (work) container. I can't think of a fix because any there is would break the privacy of containers.

thomastjeffery 4y ago
You can right click a link, and open it in the other container. It's clunky, but has worked for me so far. The UX for default containers could really benefit from some kind of context-awareness, but I'm not sure what that would look like. I'm thinking an intermediary tab that gives you a list of default containers (instead of only a single option or none at all) to choose from when opening a domain. Then, maybe, you could set a default choice based on the originating container. Or maybe a tree of sub-containers... This is where addon-defined UX makes sense.
jedberg 4y ago
The workaround I've used is to open slack.com in the Google container, etc. Not ideal, but it works. In some cases though I do have to switch my default browser to Chrome, log in, then switch it back.

starik36 4y ago

Love the feature and use it all the time. It would be great, if you could assign a home page to a container.

julianhul 4y ago

Would be cool if each container could generate a unique browser fingerprint. Right now they are sharing the same fingerprint, which isn't great for privacy.

derbOac 4y ago
I think this is what the Temporary Containers extension does? For me, it's a fundamental part of my browsing at this point, what I install immediately after installing an adblocker. I feel resentful that the Temporary Containers extension isn't available on mobile Firefox. To me it would be as if adblocking extensions wouldn't be available. It's one thing of many that seems really different about mobile Firefox, to a point where the cynical part of me feels like mobile Firefox is being obsequious to advertisers or something for some reason in a way desktop is not.
- julianhul 4y ago
  Unfortunately the containers are all using the same fingerprint: https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers/issues/51 https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers/issues/51
sfmike 4y ago
would pay for this feature, does anyone know of another extension that does this to be used in conjunction?

qwerty456127 4y ago

A killer feature. Once I have tried Forefox's containers I am not going way...

paisawalla 4y ago

I've been using distinct FF profiles to separate work browsing from personal browsing on the same machine. I give each profile a differently colored theme to visually separate the two and discourage accidentally using one profile for another's purpose. Would multi-account containers be better for that workflow?

darksfall 4y ago
Succinctly yes, as this was what I was doing until recently. I had about 6 or 7 Firefox profiles encompassing 2 of my businesses, clients, and some administration of my fiancée's companies she runs. For each of my two businesses I had two separate profiles, one with personal accounts and a second I logged in with 'Admin' accounts for various services and infrastructure. It was a little tedious, but it worked. However I would waste so much time tabbing through multiple Firefox windows working out what was the correct one for the job in hand. Firefox Multi-Account containers got that down to two profiles, and I'd say I really only work 99% of the time in a single profile. Simple Tab Groups is invaluable too to reduce the tab 'clutter' that comes from working out of a single profile/window. Lastly as an added bonus, when I was comfortable with Multi-Account Containers, I successfully weened my fiancée off of Chrome and onto Firefox so she could flick between different accounts for those businesses she works with too.

oshanz 4y ago

[dead]

thrwawy74 4y ago

This is so much more powerful than first party isolation in Chrome. Firefox is on the only browser with something like this. I love having multiple tabs open and logged into the same website with different accounts/cookies. I also use this in conjunction with Temporary Containers so every tab is a new container automatically. If I left-click a link it will navigate keeping the same container. If I control+click it will open the link in a new/separate container. Also I use another one called Container Proxy so some containers go out through different VPNs. As much as Mozilla is fucking up Firefox currently, this is the 1 thing no other browser does better.

0x49d1 4y ago
But why is this REALLY "more powerful than first party isolation"? I don't need this feature every day, in case I do - just create separate profile and it's easy to run it right from toolbar. The only usecase I can remember: specific domains can be automatically opened in container - and that's a good feature to have, but not really a dealbreaker. Another difference: organization as a tab in the same window - not that really needed, just a different UI for not commonly used feature.
- thrwawy74 4y ago
  I use this with the Temporary Containers extension, so every tab is a new container, and a new session to the website I'm visiting. When I close the tab/container, all information about that site is lost. My browsing behavior - by default - is cookies live for as long as the container lives (and other cached elements). It makes me feel safer, browsing online, that I have to opt-in to remembering cookies and having them persist longer than the container. I can assign things over to the static containers like work-play-etc. For development I can have several tabs open with several independent sessions/logins going to the same website. When I tried to do this with Chrome it was 'clunky' to run separate Chrome profiles, which seem to be separate instances. I do remember an extension to do multiple in-the-same-browser sessions, but it was using a 3rd party service. I can have multiple sessions going in the same window in Firefox. As I understand, FPI prevents caching being used as a means to spy where you've been. My naive understanding is that containers encompass more than the cached elements FPI segregates, including things like fonts or localstorage. (I'm probably wrong) The only blindspot I see in Firefox is I wish preferences for extensions were per-container as well. I still use uMatrix, so if I've unblocked JS for a domain in 1 container, I don't want it unblocked for the same domain in an entirely separate container. Also, for some sites where I do "Sign in with Google", I like being able to 'stitch together' those session cookies by opening sites in the "Google" container so i can just waltz right into the "other site". On my other containers, they don't have the session cookie for Google in the background so I'm good. I use this for work-related things with SSO. Instead of naming the "static containers" "Work, Play, etc", I just call them the SSO-provider, and I know if I move an existing container into that or open a new tab using that container it will have the login I need. My default settings are pretty locked down. Umatrix blocks a lot in my new temporary containers, and then I gradually unblock things.

cecida 4y ago

Social media is dead. It was never social. If I had ads to sell, then I wouldn't be looking to spend the budget on deserts like Facebook and Twitter.

mteam88 4y ago

Perhaps a renaming would help this take off... Containers is overused in the dev world, and is rather ambiguous in the "outside."

ttctciyf 4y ago
"Personas"?
lockedinspace 4y ago
Cargo containers from those big ships are well-known and people can assume that each container brings a set of homogeneous items. The word "container" pictures an isolated thing, which is what the add-on provides.

denkmoon 4y ago

Couldn't live without this feature, I just wish I could have a ublock ruleset/whitelist per container.

wslh 4y ago

Fifteen years ago I developed CookiePie [1]. You can see in the video opening two different gmail accounts in different tabs on the same window. This was a relatively successful Firefox extension to use separate and temporary cookie containers in different tabs. Since the Firefox API does include these capabilities, it was a pure hack, but it worked, just it was impossible to cope with every new upgrade of Firefox. Briefly, the core of the hack was this: (1) Firefox network hooks were not linked to UI tabs. (2) So, I traverse all the object graph and find indirect links. (3) I used those links to connect the network hooks with the UI, even when they conceptually were independent from the FF extension. I sent the extension to the "Extend Firefox Prize" but didn't came with a single mention. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBkB-Yp-zM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBkB-Yp-zM

henchik 4y ago

Coolest feature is per container socks5 support so each container can send traffic through a different socks 5 server. Any VPN offering socks5 on their gateways should work. I'm using IVPN which expose socks5 on each of their WireGuard servers - there is demo on their blog - https://www.ivpn.net/blog/socks5-proxies-app-based-vpn-tunnels/ https://www.ivpn.net/blog/socks5-proxies-app-based-vpn-tunne...

0x49d1 4y ago
With different profiles you have different settings -> completely independent connection settings, if you want. What's the difference here with Chromium profiles for example?
- bjord 4y ago
  I think ff's containers are generally more powerful. Here's a random example: I live outside of the country I was born in, but I still have bank accounts and stuff there. These bank accounts freak out if I log in from my actual IP. Rather than needing to run a system-wide VPN every time I want to use one of those sites, I can set a rule that will automatically open them in a container (in the same window) with preset custom connection settings.
littlecranky67 4y ago
So sad that this feature (amongst many others) was present in Opera v12 (before they switched to Chromium). Still miss that browser, best UX ever.

dabernathy89 4y ago

I could not have done my last job without this feature, because it required assuming multiple dummy identities across various chat platforms communicating with each other. I still use it to separate out accounts for different parts of my life (work vs conference planner vs personal).

ficklepickle 4y ago
That sounds kinda ominous, like you were pumping NFTs or spreading government propaganda or something.
- dabernathy89 4y ago
  Heh - no, just a tool to let companies support chat interoperability between different apps. Lots of companies are running multiple chat apps simultaneously, either due to acquisitions or because there's a department that stubbornly refuses to migrate to a new one.

rc_mob 4y ago

How is this different from the super old firefox profiles feature?

superdeeda 4y ago
You can have tabs open in different containers all within the same window.

nvln 4y ago

I've been using this for a few months now and I love it. Along side temporary containers[1] and tridactyl[2] which gives - auto containerization based on url match - keyboard driven way to open new pages in a specific container FF transforms into a powerful browser OS running applications with hard boundaries. The only UX issue (which admittedly could be because I have changed the theme to be minimal by hacking userChrome) is that sometimes the temporary containers I spawn are the ones I need to retain (user storage) etc and I tend to forget that and loose data. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con... [2]: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl

sfmike 4y ago
whats a use case for temporary containers? Throwaway email? Does the called on server think you're a first time visitor each container?
- nvln 4y ago
  Yeah, its a good way to circumvent tracking / fingerprinting mechanisms. Anonymization primitive. But the primary usecase for me is to access a rarely used account temporarily without having to logout and login from the main account (AWS, Cloudflare, Google, etc).

time4tea 4y ago

Firefox multi account containers are amazing. For example : multiple o365 accounts, fb segregation, multiple Google accounts.... Amazing feature, underrated.

wkat4242 4y ago
Yep, only thing it doesn't work well with for me it's teams web (because teams is so boneheaded in that you can't be logged in to two tenants at the same time). Osteen the container tab gets stuck in a reload loop and then the dropped icecream picture "Oops something went wrong".
- dicknuckle 4y ago
  Not even with two separate containers?
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Yeah Teams just refuses to work in either container. Only works properly when it's in the main instance of Firefox. This is what it was like a while ago though, I haven't tested it recently because I haven't had a need to log in to other tenants anymore since I moved jobs.

shmerl 4y ago

It's good, but still lacking some useful features: * SOCKS5 proxy per container setting. * More custom icons and colors for container.

zamadatix 4y ago
SOCKS5 proxy per containers setting is there. Click the extension icon (in the toolbar not in the url bar) -> Manage Containers -> click the container you want to manage -> Advanced proxy settings
- shmerl 4y ago
  I think it's not working due not to not proxying DNS requests. This extension handles it correctly: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-proxy/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-pro...

paulpauper 4y ago

About time this happened. I have been looking for a free multi-container solution for years.

skybrian 4y ago

Why should I use this instead of multiple profiles?

Zecc 4y ago
- You can have multiples tabs in different containers in a single window. - You can tell your browser you always want to open a given site in a given container, so if you forget and try to open in the wrong one, it will remind you and give you the option to use the right one. - The name of the container you're in is shown at the end of the address bar, in the unlikely case you forget. Every tab has a thin line of a different color per containers as well, so it's easier to tell them apart. None of these things offers a big advantage over using virtual desktops, for example, but it's good to have choices.
- Queue29 4y ago
  > You can have multiples tabs in different containers in a single window. I literally want the _opposite_ of that. Chrome makes it so that a Window is specific to a profile. Makes it very simple to keep say Work and Home profiles separate, for example. Especially if you set color schemes for each window.
  - superdeeda 4y ago
    > I literally want the _opposite_ of that. That's fine, but not everyone does. I think both are useful and would prefer a browser that can support both profiles and "containers.
  - kasabali 4y ago
    You can use the old profiles feature for this.
mikl 4y ago
- You don’t need separate windows - You can configure rules, so onlinebanking.example.com (or whatever) always open in a separate profile for security. - Your history/bookmarks/extensions/settings/etc. are not separate per profile.

ggm 4y ago

Interacts badly with some GOOGLE rest-form URLs because you can't assign a /0/thing path to more than one M-A-C and google don't distinguish your google profile (identity) in the URL. Clumsy UI. It's useful (I use it) but its just not as simple as it could be. Auto assigning a URL to a container is complicated. Opening and re-opening a URL in a container is complicated. Saving container state so you can re-open the same things is .. (you guessed it) complicated.

dtx1 4y ago

I'd never trust something like this for anything serious, especially when you can just use firejail to isolate instances on a kernel level.

sunsunsunsun 4y ago

I tried this a while back but I've found having two instances of Firefox for work/personal much easier to seperate my life with. I just hotkeyed the launch of the work and personal one and use different themes on the two browsers.

loicelthesea 4y ago
This is the way

snorrah 4y ago

Some ui/ux issues aside, this is an incredibly useful feature for both work and personal use. An example of it being useful for work: I can have several AWS consoles for different environments open, so I can quickly compare configs between environments. For personal use, I can contain facebook inside its own container so it’s cookies don’t pollute my regular browsing

nuker 4y ago

Do we need Containers if using Private browsing for everything? Just curious. With saved passswords it is just one or 2 clicks to login when needed.

WirelessGigabit 4y ago
With containers you can retain the info. InPrivate stuff is gone once you close the browser (bar any nationstate spy). It's also useful because InPrivate windows share a cookie jar in Firefox.
- nuker 4y ago
  > InPrivate windows share a cookie jar in Firefox Wow, should it be a bug? Im Safari user, have little FF experience.
  - ficklepickle 4y ago
    It certainly defied my expectations. Chrome is the same. All I can think is that they wanted an inprivate window's tabs to share a jar and that then gets kinda complicated with popping tabs into their own window, putting them back, flicking between those accidentally while dragging a tab, etc. Looking at the docs it appears that Safari gets around this by just having a separate jar per tab? On desktop at least, mobile appears to be shared.
    - nuker 4y ago
      Just checked mobile Safari, looks not shared. Open private tab, login to Amazon. Open another private tab, go to Amazon - not signed in.

Renaud 4y ago

Why don't we have complete main domain isolation as an option? It would work like containers, but they would be automatically created for each domain you visit. Go visit youtube.com and anything loaded from that page is in the same container. You'd have to log into each google property as the sites would be separated from one another, and there would probably be a need to merge these containers if say www.example.com and example.com are the same site (or automerge if there is a 302 redirect).

freeplay 4y ago
This add-on has that functionality.
- Renaud 4y ago
  Does it? Did I miss something in the settings?
webjunkie 4y ago
Sounds like you are suggesting First-Party Isolation (FPI) which you can enable in Firefox. Don't know what the state of it is, seems to be off by default, or depending on the tracking protection setting.

hardwaresofton 4y ago

I use multi-account containers and they are wonderful. Combined with Simple Tab Groups[0] I have different workspaces set up, all with different creds and different auto-logins. Chrome has a version of this that doesn't work properly (much like "Incognito" mode doesn't work properly). This should be one of the biggest selling points of FF. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr...

Nadya 4y ago
Tab Groups were better when they were baked into the browser. They were extremely buggy when the code was removed and moved into an extension. Not only often losing all of my tabs - but completely forgetting all of my tab groups altogether. Causing me to lose not only important data but also having to re-organize all my tabs into tab groups only to inevitably have to redo all the work next time FF decided it wanted to crash (which was multiple times a day at that point due to the extension...). It happened with such regularity that I grew sick of it and it was the single motivating factor that pushed me to use Chrome as my default browser. I can only hope/assume they've gotten better since then - but it burned me really, really bad. So much that it still pisses me off talking about it all these years later. Two of the original features that were extremely buggy were a hotkey to open up a visual overview of tab groups (originally Ctrl+Shift+E) and a way to search for a tab and reduce the number of visible tab groups to only groups containing a tab matching that search. I see in the screenshots that this functionality seems to exist but also (based on the color coding) plays nicely with containers now. Would you be willing to vouch that it is more stable nowadays? Because if it isn't a steaming pile of shit that crashes if you so much as look in its direction that would certainly motivate me to return back to Firefox.
- hardwaresofton 4y ago
  > Tab Groups were better when they were baked into the browser. They were extremely buggy when the code was removed and moved into an extension. Not only often losing all of my tabs - but completely forgetting all of my tab groups altogether. Causing me to lose not only important data but also having to re-organize all my tabs into tab groups only to inevitably have to redo all the work next time FF decided it wanted to crash (which was multiple times a day at that point due to the extension...). It happened with such regularity that I grew sick of it and it was the single motivating factor that pushed me to use Chrome as my default browser. This hasn't happened to me -- my biggest issues have been around mistakenly clicking into a browser group in a second browser window. Since I have two browsers open, I keep one for sort of ephemeral stuff which isn't on a browser group at all, then main stuff (email, slack, etc) on the one. Note that pinned tabs also work fine -- I have a pinned tab that's not in a container at all (my personal email) and it's fine across all groups. If it helps, the extension now takes copious backups across browser upgradest at the very least (that I have to delete from time to time), files named `STF-backups-FF-<FF version>`. > I can only hope/assume they've gotten better since then - but it burned me really, really bad. So much that it still pisses me off talking about it all these years later. > Two of the original features that were extremely buggy were a hotkey to open up a visual overview of tab groups (originally Ctrl+Shift+E) and a way to search for a tab and reduce the number of visible tab groups to only groups containing a tab matching that search. Sorry to hear that... I have to say that I don't use the hotkeys that much -- I don't use a visual over view, I just go up to the add on, click it, switch into the workspace and usually I'm there for an 1-4 hours. Maybe you could look through the release notes? I don't know what the version you used last was, but I defnitely haven't lost tabs or been very frustrated with STG in a long time. The color coding is fantastic. I have most groups linked to a container profile, all new tabs open in the profile and everything is tidy, separate, and color coded. I can definitely vouch that it's more stable these days -- I am daily driving it and haven't thought about it in what has to be months to years. It's a crucial part of my workflow -- I use it to seriously separate work that I do for various projects (of course I have to re-login to Github, Gitlab, etc).

mackrevinack 4y ago

these containers come in real handy when you want to watch a youtube video but you don't want the youtube algorithm recommending you similar videos for weeks just because you clicked on one video. its similar to opening the video in an incognito window but with a container it will remember whatever cookie settings you choose instead of asking you each time

ctxc 4y ago

One thing that's been working well for me for years: just use separate browsers for separate things. Firefox, FireFox Nightly. It takes little time for you to understand the context(you see the icon or browser and know exactly what "profile" it is), there's no suggestion or link interference etc.

ShinTakuya 4y ago
It's fine if you only have a few separate concerns to separate (similarly you can also use multiple browser profiles) but it's not really scalable if you want to separate 10s of sites, clients, etc.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

alipitch 4y ago

I often visit news sites such as Hacker News. Can I use this "multi-account container" addon + something to get an experience like "iPhone Screen Time" and track my viewing time on news sites?

jdfellow 4y ago

I love containers but I've started to phase out using this extension and preferring Temporary Containers for most of my use cases.

jerrygoyal 4y ago

any alternative for chromium?

jazzgott 4y ago

I don't see any mention of Firefox extension "Open external links in a container" https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-url-in-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-url-in-c... This extension gives the ability to create bookmarks that open in a specific container automatically. When dealing with AWS accounts that are configured to use SSO. I’ll have to use IdP to login into awsapps.com. Then I have to choose AWS account and then click a Role that I would like to use for session. This is troublesome and breaks my flow. I wanted a way to quickly jump into a specific account without thinking too much. For each AWS account that I need to use, I’ve copied a link from awsapps.com pointing at specific permissions set. When opening this link I will be taken to a specific AWS account, and if the session is expired it will prompt for IdP login and proceed to AWS account. Next, I’ve created a bookmark and crafted a url that uses the mentioned extension. It will open link in to a “staging” account in Firefox container company-staging.

taubek 4y ago

This seems like such great feature. Why isn't in more prominent? Would this be replacement for Chrome profiles?

sfmike 4y ago

- will the mozilla vpn keep a static ip assigned per container? - is the browser footprint completely unique per container where the website called on thinks you're a fully different user? or its just seperating cookies and sessions? - is this just to keep accounts seperate or helps with privacy?

timvisee 4y ago

Containers are fantastic! Must have when developing/testing webapps with different user accounts, using a few containers. Miles better than juggling with other browsers or incognito mode.

freeCandy 4y ago

This is quite a unique feature that I don't think exists in any other browser, I'm surprised that this isn't being used to market Firefox.

thiscatis 4y ago

Combining this with aws-vault is such a nice little hack when logging in with multiple AWS assume-roles across various accounts!

kirimita 4y ago

(As I said in a previous discussion about Firefox) I really wish it was possible to enable DRM for a single container.

flurdy 4y ago

I Love the Multi account feature. And its related extentions Google and facebook containers. And especially the Temporary Container extension. [1] Only hassle I have is that I sometimes have to disable the google one if a site requires google auth but is in a non google container. Redirection wont work otherwise. Only temporarily until auth has finished. Also I like the integration with Mozilla VPN per container. But I wish they would support disabling the VPN for some or in reverse only enable tunneling for some containers. There was a an open issue for that. [2] [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con... [2] https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/2259 https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/2...

pharmakom 4y ago

they need to roll this into Firefox proper. Containers are an essential feature when dealing with multiple cloud environments.

sonar_un 4y ago
I wish Firefox just had proper profiles. Multi account containers are absolutely no replacement for proper profiles with separate bookmarks, extensions, cookies, etc.
- untoxicness 4y ago
  What kind of features are not covered by the current implementation of profiles? <https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...>

nikeee 4y ago

I'm using it since it was launched. For my use case, it lacked the ability to use a different container for a page based on the entire URL, not just the domain. For example, I've certain GitHub orgs that I'm using a separate account for. So the built-in ability to open sites based on the domain does not work for me. I found the extension containerise [1], which offers the ability to assign containers based on globbing and/or a regex pattern. It's not something a typical "normal" user would need, so it's reasonable to not include this kind of feature in the built-in account container implementation. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/containerise/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/containerise/

Cort3z 4y ago

This feature is possibly the main reason why I use FireFox in stead of any alternative. It is just so very nice to be able to log into multiple google accounts (in my case) at the same time.

maverick74 4y ago

Here's an interesting link: How Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection and container extensions work together https://addons.mozilla.org/blog/how-firefoxs-total-cookie-protection-container-extensions-work-together/ https://addons.mozilla.org/blog/how-firefoxs-total-cookie-pr...

KaiserPro 4y ago

Why is it worth the effort? If your company uses gmail, or any other single sign on, its a really good tool for separating work/home digital life. multiple accounts for the same site Facebook/instagram/reddit/youtube is really hard to have separate non-linked logins. Plus its a massive faff logging in and out. assigning accounts to tabs saves time. keeping your youtube recommendations clear Youtube's recommendation algorithm looks at all you are playing and figures out what you should watch next. If you see something music based, then it will hard pivot your recommendations to music. If you have something populist, then expect a fucktonne of clickbait. Have a "clean" and "dirty" profile really improves the quality of the videos I get shown.

andrepd 4y ago

How does this compare to using First-party Isolation and Cookie Auto-delete (on whitelist mode)?

sdk- 4y ago
Before FPI, containers were a good way to isolate cookies. Nowadays, it's a bit less useful for that. However, it still offers a nice solution to connect to multiple accounts simultaneously, have a different vpn/proxy per container. Also, it could be extended to isolate more things (e.g. different level of privacy settings, history, extensions, etc)

e12e 4y ago

I'm not sure how this fits against profiles, which has been in Firefox since Netscape Navigator? Does containers also allow multiple winddows to share a profile? For example, I have a work profile, and a home profile - and each has a window for browsing (eg: hn), and a window on my laptop screen for videochat (so when I look at the chat, I don't look way above the camera - which happen if I look at my main screen). I can move tabs between these windows too (eg: quickly read something while still "looking" at the camera). Does containers also allow this "single container, multiple windows" use-case?

jerieljan 4y ago
I have limited experience in using multiple Firefox profiles, but assuming it works like Chrome's, I like Multi-Account Containers instead because it lets me mix and match tabs running on different containers if you really have to. I mean, I appreciate keeping a single window dedicated to my Work container running all of my work tabs to properly isolate my sessions, but sometimes I have services that I have to login on other profiles (e.g., I use a consultant Miro account that I DO want to run on the same window, even if it's not using my Work container). It's also a lot easier to identify which tabs are running which containers thanks to their colored tab markers and the container name indicated on the address bar. It's essential if you have to say, login to two separate Gmail sessions on the same window without their sessions getting mixed up. Finally, it's different from profiles because you can optionally associate websites to containers (e.g., if I open ycombinator.com it's opened using my Personal container while opening miro.com automatically loads a different container, while I disable this feature for sites that I login across multiple containers for different contexts, such as Gmail or the AWS Console)

fnord77 4y ago

> Additionally, you can integrate Mozilla VPN into each container to add an extra layer of protection to your container tabs. so you can have a different IP address per tab?

sdk- 4y ago
Per container.

NoGravitas 4y ago

I really wish that this, and the other extensions it enables, were supported on Firefox for Android. There are a number of browsers that throw away your browsing data on every session (Firefox Focus, Duck Duck Go), and regular Firefox has the option to, but what I really want is to save cookies and other browsing data only on particular sites where I not only have an account, but also use it enough that logging in with autofill is too much of a hassle. Temporary containers allows this on desktop, but there's no mobile support.

efreak 4y ago
If you're not looking to sign into multiples accounts on the same website, look into state partitioning/first party isolation. If you are looking to sign into multiple accounts, I use multiple browsers for this.
rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
Cookie AutoDelete does it well: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode... It works on Firefox mobile beta and nightly with an addons collection: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/10/20/firefox-beta-for-android-now-supports-custom-add-on-collections/ https://www.ghacks.net/2022/10/20/firefox-beta-for-android-n...

e40 4y ago

I tried it before, but was frustrated due to sync issues. Also, it seems like it's been abandoned, since it has changed little since the introduction. Here are some thoughtful 1 star reviews: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1898521/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1900808/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1898273/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1894778/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1880788/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/reviews/1810274/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... Honestly, my own testing and all these complaints and that it hasn't been given simple care and feeding mean I'm going to avoid it until all this changes.

mattpallissard 4y ago

I want to see a systemd integration on Linux. Each account gets it's own slice, each tab gets it's own transient unit. You get nested cgroups and accounting for free. Eliminating the resource hog problem and prioritizing workloads.

mutant 4y ago
Brilliant concept! I absolutely love this idea. Shame Mozilla seems to have stopped innovation. )≠

waynesonfire 4y ago

is the button to confirm opening the the url in a new container broken for anyone else? it just doesn't respond for me and has been this way for a while.

noisy_boy 4y ago

This is a great feature that has a terrible implementation. It stubbornly tries to open both Gmail and Youtube in Google container. Even if I remove that container and create separate ones for Gmail and Youtube, when I try to open those sites in their respective containers, it will refuse to open it. If I restart firefox and retry, it goes back to creating the Google container and open both in that container. Absolutely terrible UX for something that could be as simple as: 1. Right click on a tab and let me select a container 2. Ask if I want to remember it. 3. Actually remember it. It actually shows the container in the address-bar which is a perfect spot for me to click on that and change it to another container - but noooo, that would be so obvious hence clicking on it does nothing. Great UX. Everytime I want to support Firefox and come back to it, shit like this just drives me mad and makes me go to the terrible but polished alternative of Chrome. Sigh.

mckravchyk 4y ago

I don't get how Chrome does not have it and very few people are aware that there's this browser called Firefox that has this feature that's very hard to live without. Another thing Ctrl+Tab MRU. I just could not get back to using Chrome for these 2 reasons alone.

Shakahs 4y ago
Because it would interfere with Google's data collection and so they don't want you to have it. Instead of having disposable browsing containers they make Chrome itself automatically log into your Google account, then offer to continuously upload all of your browsing data via Google Chrome Sync. It's an anti-privacy user story.